Allthough a game would be the most interesting software project, it can turn out to be to big a project to begin with.
I suggest thinking of some other simpler ideas and think of the specifics of a game later.

I'v been thinking of gathering diferent types of information to an information gateway.

Here are some of the ideas.

A breaking news notifier.
An Event callender with email notification feature
A sortable list of denors and donations
A list of teams.
- team name
- craft name(s), current specs, goal specs.
- description ( goal )
- members
- budget
- mile stones, with date
- pictures of craft and team
- newz linx specific to this team on xprize.org and other media.
A list of all prizes ( also x-cup prizes )
- prize name
- description ( goal )
- winner ( if any )
- winning date ( if any )
- prize size
- donations and donors
- newz linx specific to this prize on xprize.org and other media.
- etc...
A live chat for users.
- chat with xprize teams and/or xprize administrators/founders.
- chat with other users
An xprize streaming radio ( this is a little more work )

Most of these features could be made on a webpage, but i think custom build software as a gateway could make it more userfriendly.

Looks like your trying to create an X-prize portal. Something this website is supposed to be. The trick in having an information portal is "information." Or "content" for any website. In an endeavor in which development secrecy is an important consideration, how does one generate the information frequency required to support such functions?

Yes, I guess a portal is what I am proposing.
It is true such a portal is kind of what the xprize website is.
My idea would be to create a communication/information gateway/portal where the community itself is the source of the information available.
In some cases information could also be suplied by the teams, the xprize staff and/or other media organizations or direct linx to these.
The reason for creating a standalone application for the portal is mainly a higher degree of userfriendlyness and the option for a future implementation of games in the same platform.
The problem with a forum as an information holder is that the information structure is random and hard to get the main overview from.

how about a graphics card tester? have you ever walked into a computer shop and seen a wicked grpahics card test runnign on a computer of a tree moving in the wind or a dragion flying through the sky.Well howabout a real time rendered movie of an x-prize launch vehcile taking off fro different views ect. i think that such a tester would be a great idea because:

A: people would run it in shops ect
B: all it would require would be a graphics engine, textured models of the xprize vechicles and some scripting (eg the movement of the models in the enviroment ect ) to devolop.
C: ease of development (gaming and graphics engines are freely availale on the net)
D: it would be good for public attention

all that would be needed is high quality models of xprize vehicles and then to render them in real time by the computers graphic card with a small frames per second counter in the corner of the screen.

if this idea is developed then perhaps at a later stage the game could emerge?

My question is: How would you entice enough computer stores to show off this
graphic depiction of an x-prize launch(?) on their comps? Would these stores have to be paid? And if so, who would be paying?

I think that this is one of the more do able projects that may have the potential to get the x-prize out there to some of the "avarage" population.
Of course....since when have computer buffs ever been concidered "avarage" or "normal"

_________________"When traveling through life, remember to keep your eye on the donut and not the hole." ~anon

How would you entice enough computer stores to show off thisgraphic depiction of an x-prize launch(?) on their comps?

Many stores have online website, often 1 e-mail with the link to the download will be anough. not everyone or everyshop will show it, but if 100 over the globe will do so, it's already a lot people who will see it.

Hi all,
Great thread here! I have quite a bit of Delphi experience and would love to help out, in small chunks that is. My day & night jobs eat up all of my time but I might be able to slip a few lines of code in here and there. Oh, I also know enough C++ to get into trouble but don't care to code in it. I also know a little about project management... I managed seven or so programmers where I worked last...

Hi all,Great thread here! I have quite a bit of Delphi experience and would love to help out, in small chunks that is. My day & night jobs eat up all of my time but I might be able to slip a few lines of code in here and there. Oh, I also know enough C++ to get into trouble but don't care to code in it. I also know a little about project management... I managed seven or so programmers where I worked last...

IM me if you wish... I am on most every day.KenKC7RAD

excellent, good to have you with us, when and if we actually get to the coding part. with sigurd gone and no major x-prize activity now (public that is, no telling what scaled is doing) the forums have been too quiet. let's step it up folks, i know some of us post, but 4-6 regular posters isn't enough.

sigurd's doing the card game some i think, he's on a ski vacation right now. he's good enough that it's fairly reasonable to expect it to be close to done pretty soon, we'll see. personally i haven't tried the card game but it sounds like it's at least fairly good given the amount of time that's been spent on it.

sigurd's doing the card game some i think, he's on a ski vacation right now. he's good enough that it's fairly reasonable to expect it to be close to done pretty soon, we'll see. personally i haven't tried the card game but it sounds like it's at least fairly good given the amount of time that's been spent on it.

Well I'm back now... still dizzy from the 2000 Meter (and higher) to 5 meter (almost sea level (antwerp)) diffrence... and of course from the 1K KM trip by car..

Wel, I havn't worked a lot on the card game when I was on vacation, but I have some visual test designs, interface etc (in MFC)... After skiing I was too tired most of the times to do anything else then eating, reading and sleeping But I'll work more on it comming weeks.

Quote:

It sounds like a real easy task that could be done with minimal effort in VB (visual Basic).

That's true, with VB it's very easy, I made several small funny games with it in the past, but the needed dll's etc are too annoying to share it very easy with other people.I want to be able to send a package, less then 1 meg, to anyone, and that the person can use it, without getting annoying warnings "dll missing" etc.

And C++ isn't that much more work, it's just to what you're used to.

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on a more grander scale i am attempting to learn DirectX8 to do some basic 3d models ect to hopefully one day create a reasonable game.

I hope you're going to learn DirectX9 Summer 2003 (SDK) release, cause you don't wanne learn old technology when you can get for the same swet the latest one Well, keep in mind, DirectX only to draw 3D, help you with the D3DX with some methods, help you with game input (mouse, ...), music and sound and multiplayer, but all other sides have to be done by the programmer, so you'll need also a good understanding for math, physics, ... and also artists to make the real visual graphics you're going to render in 3D.

For a card game, I will not use DirectX, cause it will put the requirements too high for most low cost systems. (latest DX version does not support Software rendering anymore, so a 3D card is needed (only a REF version, but that one is too slow, only for testing purpose) ).
And it will make the project also a lot larger.

@eXcaliberZ, you can add me in your messenger (AIM, or MSN Messenger) if you have one of both.
If you want my MSN Messenger address, please send a private message, I don't like to put my e-mail address public.